


Growing Pains

by AAboys



Category: Gorillaz, Powerpuff Girls
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-01 19:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15780981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AAboys/pseuds/AAboys
Summary: A chance encounter with a stranger's wallet seems insignificant to Giovanni Copular. Little does he know, it will affect him remarkably when he grows older.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by @doublebassstory on Tumblr

_Shadi’s Grocery, 1996_

Working at the local grocery store at the age of 15 was not the way Giovanni wanted to be spending his time, but here he was, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping until he would need to uncurl his aching fingers from broom handle. Every day seemed to mold into one, horribly mind-numbing routine:

10:00 Am: Work- The Beginning of The End

12:00 Pm: Lunch- 30 Minutes in Heaven

12:30 Pm: Work- Welcome Back to The End

8:00: Freedom and The Realization That Your Whole Day is Lost

This cycle continued day in and day out for what felt like an eternity. He despised working there and if he didn’t need the money to help his family, he’d be long gone. So here he would stay, leaning on his broom handle, trying to depict shapes the dust piles he had made. After an hour-long five minutes, he hears a commotion break out about two isles down. Giovanni snaps his head up, but before he could process what was happening, he was being pushed out of the way by a hasty blur of a man holding a sloshing bottle of wine.

As the man charged out of the door, a soft slap against tile alerted the Giovanni that the apparent culprit had dropped his wallet. The boy dropped his broom quickly and scrambled to pick it up. With little chance to open it, he finds himself being shoved out of the door with haste.

“Don’t just stand there, you idiot-boy!” His god-awful boss spits out. “Go after the thief!”

Normally, he would do as little as he can to obey an order, but this time he is far from sluggish and chases the man out the door with the wallet clutched in-hand. As he’s running he feels a rush of exhilaration and desperation for each day to be this spontaneous.

 _Maybe then I’d enjoy this job_ , he thinks.

When he finally catches up to him the man is frantically hailing a taxi.

“Excuse me!” Giovanni calls, huffing from the physical exhaustion. However, once the man notices the boy in his work clothes, he quickly shuts the cab door in the boy’s face, and shields himself from view as the car drives away.

The boy watches the cab drive off with a cocktail of mixed feelings. He feels as though he should feel defeated, and stares down at the cracked, leather wallet in his palm.

_... Free money?_

Giovanni glances around, pockets the wallet, turns on his heel and begins the walk back to the grocery store. Once he pushes through the doors the familiar smell of stale air fills his nostrils.

_Annnnd we’re back._

“Well?! Did you catch him?!” His boss asks, irritated.

Giovanni holds out his empty hands. “What do you think?” He responds with more snap than he had intended.

The man stares at him, outraged, and lowers his tone. “That’s the second slip-up this week. Keep this up and I’ll fire the hell outta you. Now go to the back and count stock.”

In fear of losing the job that he still desperately needed, he suppresses the urge to mutter something under his breath and walks to the back of the store.

Once he’s alone amongst boxes of pickle jars and peanut butter, he peeks out from his hiding place for any sign of his fellow employees and takes out the wallet. He slips the odd license out to read it properly:

DRIVING LICENSE

1\. Niccals

2\. Murdoc Faust

3\. 06.06.1966 ENG

4a. 09.30.1984 4c. DVLA

4b. 09.30.1994

5\. 45776676

7\. Murdoc Niccals

8\. 696 Holst Drive Stoke-on-Trent Staffordshire

9\. AM/A1/A2/A/B


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italian Translations at the bottom! <3

That night, as he strolls into his apartment building in Brooklyn, Giovanni is surrounded by the familiar dingy scenery of home. His complex was never a pretty building - the off-white wallpaper was peeling off the walls and browning at the edges, the maroon carpet in the halls was spotted with suspicious stains that the janitor didn’t care much to remove. The ceiling tiles were sagging with age and exhaustion- but it was cheap. 

 

When he finally reaches his own apartment door, he takes his key out from his jacket pocket with aching hands and slides it into lock. To his dismay, it was jammed as usual and it takes him a few joggles before he can get in. 

 

When he finally gets inside, he hears the all too familiar sound of Totò’s “Malafemmena” playing as loud as his family’s worn out record player could manage.

 

_ Femmena, _

_ Tu si 'a cchiù bella femmena, _

_ Te voglio bene e t'odio _

_ Nun te pozzo scurdà... _

 

This was a favorite of his grandmother’s while she made dinner- risotto, if his nose proved to be reliable. 

 

He closes the door behind him and locks it promptly. Gripping the door frame, he pushes his shoes off, one by one, and sighs with relief when he feels the flattened carpet beneath his feet.  His apartment is small. Stepping inside placed you immediately in the living room, virtually a lived-in antique shop. His mother is sitting in the her usual worn, leather armchair, reading a book. Giovanni makes his way over to his own stiff, smaller seat next to her.

 

“Madre,” he says over the music, as he sits down in the chair, knees to his chest. His mother sets down her book and smiles warmly down at him. 

 

“Ah Giovanni! You’re home! Now come here and show your Madre un po ‘di amore.” She reaches her arms out to him, lovingly. 

 

Suddenly Giovanni is reminded why he took that stupid job at the grocery store in the first place; all he had ever known were his mother and his grandmother. The both of them meant more to him than they could ever imagine. Sadly, his mother had grown ill with a chronic disease that most doctors deemed untreatable, and while this crushed him each and every day, he still tried to put money into “short-term treatments”- painkillers, fever-reducers, pepto-bismol- his own Rx concoction. 

 

“Giovanni?” His mother says with a concerned tone that brings him back to reality With a hard wrench, but he keeps his cool in front of his mom.

 

The boy blinks rapidly, back into reality, and accepts her embrace. “Sorry, Mommy.” 

 

“How was work?” She asks.

 

“It’s was uh... fun for once.”

 

Surely he could not tell his mother that he had chased a man- some raving alcoholic, judging by the cheap liquor he was stealing- down the street. He knows his workplace adventures would only worry her, so he buries the full truth down the back of his throat. 

 

“That’s good,” His mother smiles at him “It’s nice to enjoy your work.” She pats his cheek gently.

 

“It is,” He kisses her forehead and stands up, legs wobbling as he prys himself from the chair. “I’m going to see if Nonna needs any help. Get some rest, okay?” 

 

“Okay.” She answers, giggling softly. She calls after him as he walks away. “You’re getting too big for that chair!” 

 

______________

 

The familiar tune that’s being blasted through the apartment is pinpointed in the kitchen, where a short, grey-haired woman is swaying to herself next to the sink. The tiled floor doubled as her dance floor. She cuts up tomatoes with shaky hands and sets the tops aside. A feeling of nostalgia hits him as he remembers how she used to bounce a younger version of himself on her hip while she poured exciting and mysterious spices into family dishes that he would grow to love later on in his life. 

“La musica non è rumorosa?” He calls out to her over the music, a teasing tone in his voice. 

 

“Mi hai spaventato ragazzo! Don’t you know I’m old? ” She says, hand pressed to her chest.

 

“Sorry!” Giovanni laughs. He rests his elbow on the counter and leans against the cabinets before asking, “How is mom?” It was the same question he had been asking for months, and the answer never seemed to change. 

 

She smiles at him with poorly hidden sympathy. “Sempre meglio ogni giorno. She’s very strong!” 

 

“...That’s great- Oh!” He pulls a tightly knit wad of cash out of his pocket. “ I hope this helps this month.” 

 

While most of that money came from his job, a lot of it also came from things he wasn’t too proud of. He didn’t care. All of it went to a good cause.

 

“Lo fa sempre,” his grandmother says taking the money and putting it in a kitchen drawer near her. “You always help so much.”

 

Giovanni wondered how true that really was.

 

_________________

 

The rest of the night was equally as mundane. He ate a dinner with his family that was too good for what they could afford. Nonna recited the same stories about his mother as a young girl in Italy. Nobody talked about his mother’s condition. After the dinner was done, Giovanni stayed in the living room with his mother, sitting next to her quietly and making sure she was alright while she read until she fell asleep in her chair. When he was sure she was sleeping, he laid a quilt over her and went into his room. 

 

Giovanni took pride in his room, even though it wasn’t much. His bed was just as old as his chair in the living room. He had put a trunk and pillows at the end of it, because he was much longer than he used to be. There were few items in the room other than the bed. His dresser which was filled to the brim with clothes he either “borrowed”, stole or bought himself, but most of them were hand-me-downs. He prided himself on his CD shelf which was just starting to grow as he branched out from listening to the Italian folk music his grandmother bought for him.. 

He dug around in his jeans pockets to clear out the day, pulling out a cigarette he had found on the concrete, crumpled up gum wrappers, and the wallet he had forgotten about. The boy shoved the wallet and cigarette in the corner of his underwear drawer, and tosses the wrappers near the trashcan by his door.  _ Close enough. _

 

After stripping down to his underwear, he plopped down on his bed and stared at his fraying carpet- thinking about his Mamma and Nonna, thinking about his shitty boss, thinking about the hell he would encounter once his alarm would wake up at 6 AM.

 

_ Great. _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {Italian translations}
> 
> Madre- Mother  
> Giovanni- Ace’s real name (in this fanfic only)  
> Madre un po 'di amore- [show your] mother some love  
> Nonna- grandma  
> La musica non è rumorosa?- Is the music not loud?  
> mi hai spaventato ragazzo- you scared me boy  
> sta facendo sempre meglio ogni giorno- she's doing better and better every day  
> fa sempre- it always does
> 
>  
> 
> {notes}   
> School just started again so heads up chapters will come slower, but I got some really cool ideas for this I hope you guys will like!! Look out for chapter three and keep reading. Love you guys

**Author's Note:**

> In case the name thing is a little confusing: In this fic, Ace hasn't gotten his nickname yet- his birthname here is Giovanni Copular. Keep tuning in to find out how and when he gets his infamous name.   
> This chapter is so short that it could be a preview- Hopefully chapter 2 makes up for it soon!   
> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
